


A Thousand Regrets

by ilien



Category: Highlander: The Series, The Witcher (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, But sometimes it is, Immortal Jaskier, M/M, canon levels of blood and swearing, the major character death isn't always permanent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22476928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilien/pseuds/ilien
Summary: Five worlds where Geralt never discovered Jaskier’s immortality and one where he did.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 35
Kudos: 641
Collections: Fandom Snowflake Challenge





	A Thousand Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> All you need to know about The Highlander is that Immortals stop aging after their first death and only die if they lose their head. 
> 
> When I mentioned a Witcher/Highlander crossover over here in a post for the Snowflake Challenge, some people expressed some interest. So, here are six of those. I’m sorry most of them are angsty — we can pretend only the last one is real, right? 
> 
> Jaskier is Immortal in all of these. In some Geralt knows about Immortals, but in most he doesn’t. I guess they’re good at keeping secrets?

**1**

“What are you?” Geralt asks. 

The creature looks like Jaskier—almost. The evidence that it can’t be the bard is painfully obvious: it’s been twenty years since they last saw each other, and the creature looks exactly the way Jasker did back then. Geralt holds his sword to the creature’s neck.

“Don’t you mean, ‘Hello, Jaskier, my old friend, I missed you so much!” The creature says with Jaskier’s voice that’s even trembling the same way Geralt remembers. The terrified puppy eyes are a very good imitation, as well.

“What did you do to him?” Geralt demands. 

“It’s me, Geralt, can’t you, I don’t know, smell me, or something?”

The thing is, Geralt can. It smells almost like Jasker, and no one else probably would have noticed that the familiar smell hides something else behind it: a sharp smell of lightning and thunderstorm, something deep and dangerous. He encountered the same odour before, on some of the most dangerous people he met. He had his suspicions about those people’s humanity, and now he has his proof.

“Where’s Jaskier?” He asks again.

“I’m right here, Geralt, listen to me,” the creature repeats. It looks like Geralt isn’t getting anything else from it. Jasker’s probably long dead, and Geralt has no time for this shit. 

He draws his silver blade through the creature’s heart and waits for it to show its real face as it dies. 

It doesn’t.

In the decades that follow, he never sees Jaskier again, and sometimes, when he thinks he catches a sniff of the same mixture of smells — of Jaskier and something else — or thinks he sees a familiar face in the crowd, he can’t help but wonder who was it that really killed his bard.

**2**

Jaskier wakes up with a painful breath and his first thought is, ‘I wasn’t supposed to survive this.’ His second thought is, ‘Geralt!’

He says that last one out loud.

“He saw you die, kid,” someone says. “I’m sorry. He thinks you’re dead, I’d highly recommend you keep it that way. I’m Ben, by the way. How good are you with a sword?” 

He listens to Ben’t explanations and all he can think of is Geralt, somewhere out there, thinking he’s dead. Ben manages to persuade him it’s safer this way, for everyone.

**3**

“Huh,” Jaskier says as he enters their room, looking deeply puzzled. “I just met an old friend of mine, from Oxenfurt. He looks—Geralt, tell me the truth. Do I look like a sixty-year-old man?”

“Not a day over fifty-nine,” Geralt deadpans, and then looks at his companion, for what feels like the first time in years, because he truly never realized that the bard doesn’t look any older than he did thirty years ago. 

“Oh, fuck you,” the bard retaliates and stares in the mirror. “I never actually paid attention,” he says. “But sixty-year-olds don’t look like I do, do they?”

Geralt hums.

“I guess it’s true then, what the rumors said. That my mother was an elf,” Jaskier muses. “Ha. Not the worst thing she could give me. Aand I got to pass on the ears, that’s not so bad either!”

**4**

Geralt actually outlives Yennefer. Julian is surprised. He actually did expect her to be the death of—both of them. When he hears about her demise, he briefly considers seeking Geralt out to offer a shoulder to cry on, but decides against it. Geralt isn’t alone anymore, he’s got his child surprise and their entire destiny ahead of him; he truly doesn’t need his old not-friend with his ridiculous stories. 

He stays away, but keeps an eye on the witcher and his destiny child. Once or twice, his sword comes in handy, and he’s always lucky enough to disappear before they discover who disposed of whatever the danger of the week might have been.

Gearlt lives to be five hundred, and then some. At his grave, Julian often sees Ciri, but she never recognises him.

**5**

“They beheaded the poor sod,” the innkeeper said. “I hear, the princess cried for days! But what can you do, law’s law!”

Geralt closes his eyes briefly and hopes they’re discussing a different bard. Some part of him knows they aren’t.

**+1**

The last thing he hears is Geralt’s desperate, “Jaskier!” 

He probably would have said something beautifully dramatic if he had the strength. But hey, at least he’s about to die in Geralt’s arms — that has to be good enough.

The last thing he thinks is, ‘I wish he used my given name,’ which is probably ridiculous, but he doesn’t have the strength to laugh at that, or at the way he jumped in front of the Witcher to shield him—him!—from a blow that...probably wouldn’t have killed him. Definitely killed Julian.

The first thing he hears is a sob.

The first thing he thinks is, ‘Breathing fucking hurts.’

Everything fucking hurts: his chest, his head, his throat. He takes a deep breath and only then remembers he wasn’t supposed to do that. Geralt is—

“Are you,” Jaskier coughs and discovers he’s feeling better with every breath, “Geralt, are you actually crying?”

The Witcher looks at him with stunned wet eyes. He’s still holding Jaskier to his chest and Jasker’s hand in his own. Jaskier kind of likes that, he should die more often.

“Why, Geralt of Rivia, you do, in fact, care!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Geralt demands, looking less broken and more angry every second; Jaskier really, really does not like the change.

“Didn’t I tell you what? That you care?” He says, “I believe that I did, my friend, on multiple occasions.”

Geralt grabs his sword — the silver one — and, to Jaskier’s shock, slashes into the back of Jaskier’s hand. He screams and tries to get away, but Geralt keeps him in place and demands, “Look!”

Terrified, Jaskier does as he’s told: he glances at the cut, just in time to see little blue lightnings running through the broken skin, as if sewing it shut. Seconds, and the slash is gone. 

Geralt lets go of him, and he rushes to touch his chest where the mortal wound is supposed to be. His shirt is completely destroyed and he’ll mourn it later, but—there isn’t a scratch on him. A torn shirt, loads of blood and not a single mark. 

“What—the fuck—just happened?” Jaskier demands.

“You really didn’t know? Was it your first death?” Geralt asks.

“My first—what? No, Geralt, what do you think, I fucking die every other day, twice when it’s raining! What kind of question is that?”

“So, what you’re saying is,” Geralt starts, dangerously, “you did, in fact, jump between me and the monster fully expecting to die?”

Jaskier doesn’t like what follows. Just his luck that the longest speech he gets from Geralt in, like, forever and a bit, is a dressing-down that includes insults and death threats alike, and isn’t it rich, threatening someone who, apparently, just died for you, with further violence?

Explanations follow much later. Immortality, huh. There’s a song in this somewhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Before this one, I didn't finish a fic in about two years; I'm very excited to be writing again! 
> 
> I also haven't read the books (well, I did, a few short stories, about twenty years ago, but I remember absolutely nothing) and haven't got a beta. Please give me a shout if you notice a typo, a grammar error or something misspelled, but pretend it's an AU if a plot point doesn't match the books.


End file.
